All posts tagged ‘stone mountain scenic railroad’

This is officially called "The Confederate Memorial on Stone Mountain". It's the largest relief carving in the world...at least until the Crazy Horse Monument is finished. We all know who the guys are...who knows the horses' names?

Last weekend the family headed up to Atlanta for some fun sightseeing. We had tickets to an Atlanta Braves baseball game on the Sunday afternoon of that weekend, but otherwise we sought out family-friendly, educational activities that wouldn’t break the bank.

My dear husband, in his typical train-fan fashion, knew of a tourist scenic railroad in the area. So that’s what we sought to do. We decided to grab some same-day tickets to the Saturday night Braves game, and then headed out for the day to Stone Mountain Park which is about 15 miles east of Atlanta. We weren’t quite sure what to expect — several folks at the hotel breakfast area told us we’d have a good time and that there was “so much to do!”.

Those folks were right! Stone Mountain Park is very beautiful and there was no shortage of things to do! We didn’t quite dress for hiking up the mountain (and my husband’s back wouldn’t have been to happy with it either), but we were able to enjoy the scenic train, the skytram right to the top of the mountain, a ferryboat ride, and a fun — touristy — lunch where our yeast rolls were thrown to us by our servers!

A view of the "Memorial Lawn" - laser light shows are held every night at 9:30pm during the summer. We'd have loved to have seen one; apparently their lightshow rendition of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is pretty well known. Photo: Patricia Vollmer

We really enjoyed the Civil War history that’s been memorialized at the park — of course there’s the beautiful bas relief sculpture of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson (and their horses!). There is also an antebellum mansion to tour, and a Confederate Museum.